Detective Comics Vol 1 586

"Rat Trap": As he watches the sewer waters wash Batman away, The Ratcatcher leaves his opponent for dead and returns to his remaining prisoners: the three other men who had convicted him of murder years ago. Against all odds, however, Ba

Rat Trap

It's what they deserved! They locked me away -- treated me like dirt -- told lies about me! But I showed 'em! I'm The Ratcatcher -- an' I caught 'em like the rats they are! I made 'em pay -- Just like you're goin' to pay for your interference, Batman!

Synopsis for "Rat Trap"

As he watches the sewer waters wash Batman away, The Ratcatcher leaves his opponent for dead and returns to his remaining prisoners: the three other men who had convicted him of murder years ago. Against all odds, however, Batman manages to survive the flood. Though in ill health, Batman immediately sets out to search for the Ratcatcher's prisoners, with only a makeshift torch lighting his way.

Meanwhile, an autopsy of the late Judge Hogan convinces Commissioner Gordon that Gotham's sewers bear investigating. The Commissioner sends several patrolmen and a sanitation worker into the sewers, but the policemen are quickly driven off by the Ratcatcher's rats, and the worker killed. Nevertheless, the Ratcatcher realizes that the police will eventually overwhelm his makeshift prison, and decides to execute his prisoners before making his escape.

After consulting a sanitation department official, Commissioner Gordon realizes that the mastermind behind the rats must be Otis Flannegan, a former sanitation worker who'd claimed to have trained rats to do his bidding. While the Commissioner rallies a larger police force, Batman encounters Flannegan's rat hordes again, and uses his torch - along with a pail of gasoline - to burn them all alive. Subsequently, Batman finds Flannegan's prison, where Flannegan has already killed another of the prisoners.

Without his rats to help him, Flannegan quickly falls to Batman, who brings him and the two surviving prisoners to the surface and into the waiting hands of the police. A weary Batman then leaves for Leslie Thompkins's clinic, half-jokingly passing up a "fight" with a stray rat on the way.